Today’s class speaker was Antonios Vouloudis, an engineer who was a masters degree in engineering and science which was aquired in Greece. He has known our university for about two months and he is currently NYUAD’s inagural director of sustainability. Today I learned form him that there are multiple projects in Abu Dhabi which are working on sustainability and which are trying to make the city more green by adding road parks and etc. 5 billion (not sure about the number) AED were dedicated to include the public realm of Abu Dhabi, which included more than 250 projects. The projects Antonios worked on were called the climate passage which included areas which have less temperature than outside in May/October by 10-15 degrees. My point of view on these projects is that they require a lot of maintenance to function the way they were designed which makes them not so sustainable, if sustainability is the main factor we are talking about. If we are talking about the final result, then yes that may be a good point to cool down in this very hot country. Antonios also talked about recyclable trash sorting. Probably the most astonishing fact for me was that one cup of empty coffee can ruin the whole trash can if misplaced. Even though I knew that information beforehand, it’s reminder still was a very big message for me. From now on I plan to carefully sort my trash to make sure it goes to the right place and not to contaminate other trash.
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